Loftus Road Stadium History & Information

Loftus Road has been home to Queens Park Rangers since 1917 (minus two brief stints at White City Stadium for the 1932-33 and 1962-63 seasons), which is most in the club’s history since it was founded in 1882. Loftus Road actually opened in 1904 and was occupied by a club called Shepherd’s Bush FC until it dissolved a couple of years before QPR moved in. Loftus Road is currently the smallest stadium in the Premier League, with a miniscule capacity of just 18,500.

Fulham played at Loftus Road from 2002-04 while Craven Cottage was being renovated. Before that, the rugby union side London Wasps began playing there in 1996 until Fulham moved in. Despite its tiny size, Loftus Road has actually hosted a half dozen full international games over the last decade, with Australia featuring in half of them. Rugby union and boxing are among the other events staged a Loftus Road from time to time.

Loftus Road is basically made up of four stands, one on each side of the pitch. The biggest is the South Africa Road stand, which also contains much of the operations side of the team within. Ellerslie Road stand has the initials QPR marked across it and has frequently changed names but the fans always call it the same. The School End is where the visitor’s supporters are located and had a large scoreboard added in 2008. The last section is the Loft, where season ticket holders sit. There was a controversy at the stadium in the 1980s when an artificial pitch was installed, due to its harshness and that the coach would water the pitch down during games to mess with visitors. A league regulation in 1988 saw the end of this short-lived controversy. The future of Loftus Road is very much up in the air, as the previously mentioned capacity is the smallest in the Premier League, and there haven been talks of a serious expansion or even relocation to a newer, larger stadium. The stadium tour is called the Loftus Road Experience and is a very all-encompassing tour that even includes player interaction.